Arrayed Imaging Reflectometry (AIR) is an emerging technology that has vast potential for use in a number of diagnostic applications among others. To gather a large volume of highly accurate data, a number of AIR diagnostic chips or slides having precise coatings of an anti-reflective coating, such as a silicon dioxide (SiO2) film, are required. Moreover, the thickness of the anti-reflective coating must be accurately produced to sub-angstrom tolerances. The antireflection phenomenon at the core of AIR relies on extreme and absolute control of film thickness.
Typically, the required anti-reflective coatings and films are produced by growing an oxide film or layer thicker than required on a silicon wafer, cutting (dicing) the wafer into individual chips, and then slowly removing the oxide layer on the chips to thin the film to the desired value. Typically, commercially supplied silicon wafers and chips have a thickness uniformity range of approximately ±1% of the target thickness. This roughly corresponds to a variance of approximately ±14 Å for the targeted thickness of ˜1400 Å, which decreases the accuracy of data gathered using the chips without a final tuning of thickness.
Thus, there exists a need for a method and related devices for efficiently preparing a large number of coated chips having very precise anti-reflective coatings with minimal variation, on the order of sub-angstroms, across the large number of wafers.